ANZAC of the Year Award

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E nga mana, e nga reo, e nga iwi katoa, e huihui nei, tēnei aku mihi māhana ki a koutou.  Kia ora tātou katoa.  Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, warm greetings to you all.

I specifically acknowledge: Don McIvor, President of the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association; Your Worship Hugh Vercoe, Mayor of Matamata-Piako, and Paul Thomas, Deputy Mayor of Western Bay of Plenty; Alex Pluck, Waikato, King Country and Bay of Plenty RSA District President; Maurice Rimmer, Waihi Beach Memorial RSA President; and most importantly, Will White and your parents Nicole Clare and Paul Schuler, and Sergio Schuler and your parents Vivian and Anthony Schuler – tēnā koutou katoa.

Let me say that I am delighted to be here to present this year’s ANZAC of the Year Award.  Shortly I will read the citation and confer the award.  Before doing so, I would like to briefly speak of the wider significance of this event.

Tomorrow as dawn breaks, New Zealanders and Australians around the world will gather to mark Anzac Day.  At first light, the last post will be played and we will recall the time when the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps—the ANZACs—stepped into our history when they landed at Gallipoli.

In a tragic campaign that claimed thousands of lives, the service of the ANZACs was marked by courage, comradeship, commitment and compassion.

The man who has come to exemplify the Anzac spirit, and who is represented in this magnificent award, is Private Richard Henderson, a stretcher bearer at Gallipoli.

Within days of arriving at Gallipoli he saw Australian stretcher bearer Jack Simpson Kirkpatrick using donkeys to ferry the wounded.  When Simpson was killed on 19 May 1915, Henderson continued the work, using one of Simpson’s donkeys.  He later served on the Western Front where he was honoured with the Military Medal for repeatedly bringing in wounded men under heavy shell fire, despite being gassed.

After the war, Henderson went back to his career as a teacher, but his service had taken its toll.  He was forced to quit teaching when he went blind in 1934 and died, after years of ill-health in Auckland in 1958, just 63 years old.
I have mentioned Henderson’s life, service and sacrifice in some detail because it was here in Waihi that he was born.

It seems fitting that 118 years after his birth in this town that we are here to honour two young boys who demonstrated that the values of the Anzac spirit are not confined to military service or to adults.  They are the values that were demonstrated in abundance by Will White, a Little Nipper in the Waihi Surf Life Saving Club, and his cousin Sergio Schuler, when they came to the rescue of a man caught in a rip at Bowentown Beach in December last year.

We will hear more of Will and Sergio’s exploits when I read the citation for this award.  Their actions, however, show that the values embodied in the Anzac spirit are universal.   They are values that every parent seeks to instil in their children. I’m sure Will and Sergio’s parents must be so proud of the courage, comradeship, commitment and compassion their boys displayed. 

When the Anzac of the Year panel decided a few weeks ago that this year’s award would go to Sergio and Will, we were very conscious that it was again different from those previously conferred.  Last year’s winner was the Student Volunteer Army, which represented the Anzac spirit in a collective sense.  And the two winners before that, John Masters and Brian McMahon, were former military men who the embodied the Anzac spirit as individuals.

However, the panel quickly came to the conclusion that the actions of Will and Sergio also met the criteria of the award.  Their exceptional courage and the commitment, comradeship and compassion the two boys offered to a man in extreme distress, and who might have easily have drowned, was in the true spirit of the original Anzacs.  In doing so, they demonstrated a maturity well beyond their years.

I congratulate the Will White and Sergio Schuler on winning this well-deserved award.   Kia ora huihui tātou katoa.
 
Citation:
Following an act of remarkable courage and compassion, Will White and Sergio Schuler are the 2013 Anzacs of the Year.

On 29 December 2012, cousins Will and Sergio, both aged 12, were swimming at Bowentown Beach, Waihi, when 32-year-old Vincent Shao became caught in a rip after losing his footing in waist-high water.  Despite their age and size, the pair took immediate action.

Sergio rushed to shore to raise the alarm before heading back to help his cousin. The pair didn’t hesitate to battle 1.5 metre swells and a strong undertow to go to Vincent’s aid.

By the time the boys reached him, Vincent was in a distressed state, fighting the water and holding Will and Sergio to stay afloat.  Using his surf lifesaver training, Will managed to calm the situation, and worked with Vincent to get him out of the rip.

At all times the two boys used their training, teamwork and sheer bravery to navigate the crisis, showing maturity beyond their years and ultimately risking their own safety to ensure Vincent’s survival.

Will and Sergio supported Vincent to the shore, where he collapsed unconscious. The pair continued to care for Vincent before handing over to an ambulance crew who transported Vincent to Tauranga hospital in a serious condition.

Both boys have been humble in accepting praise for the rescue, crediting their training and teamwork above heroism.

In this brave act, Will and Sergio embodied the Anzac spirit, demonstrating their innate compassion for a fellow New Zealander and commitment to leaving no one behind.